Larger disk in MCi500?

Has anyone ever exchanged the factory 160 Gb harddisk of the MCi500 for a larger one, say 500 Gb? Mine is almost full so I want to put in a larger one. There must be a way to clone or copy the original disk, so the MCi500 won't even notice. Is there a maximum addressable size?

I have wanted to try but to be honest I can't even find a way to open my MCi-500 without destroying it. Can you please tell me how you opened it up without causing damage???

I have'nt looked at the physical part of swapping the disk yet. Actually, I'm not too worried about that.
But after swapping the disk I need to transfer the software from the old disk back on the new disk. Can this be done by e.g. cloning the disk?

That's exactly my problem. The system doesn't allow for a return of your data from the disk to the computer it came from, and the experimental program that a member created to try that doesn't work for me. So I would VERY MUCH like to take the harddisk out.

I am a mechanical idiot and really need someone to instruct me how to carry out the removal or exchange, If you care to try it and then tell me how, perhaps together we can exchange information on the software part of it. I would personally think that a 1 Tb harddisk would be worth trying, I'll be more than glad to be the first and share my experiences with you.

Actually, it does. The original software will allow a backup and a restore. And I have alway kept all the MP3's I uploaded backed up on my NAS.
The operating system and software is all I am worried about. And as long as I don't find anyone who has ever done it, I am not going to open the thing up at all. Well, maybe just once to see how hard it is to get the original disk out :-)

Your response is most surprising: I recently had contact with Philips who actually contacted the software developer in Hong Kong for me. The reply was that due to copyright reasons Philips was forced to make it impossible that music that was sent to the MCi500H harddisk could be recouperated and sent back from the player's harddisk back to the computer.

In discussions on this forum I always got similar information, and now you tell me that the original sotware can transport or copy the files back to the computer???

Hi !
The WADM software can make a complete backup and restore it back to the very same device where the data came from. It might work after you have installed a biger harddisk, but I would not recommend it.
There are several persons who have installed a bigger harddisk in their WAC/MCi500H devices, but please keep in mind that there is a hardcoded maximum limit of tracks (10000 IIRC) and also max amount of Artists, Albums and Genres.
If you properly clone your old HDD (you must do this in Linux, don't even think about plugging in your old HDD to a Windows machine !!) to the new one, data should (!) be intact, but you can also use my WACHandler to copy all tracks from your current MCi500H setup ( = with the current/old HDD) to your PC and then upload them back to your new (bigger) HDD.

Thank you Tias, I hadn't thought of this aspect. As you know your special programme unfortunately never worked for me, so I must consider all of my files to be effectively lost permanently when it comes to being able to transfer them to my computer or another place,

Yesterday I did make one more try by doing a factory reset but it only brought me more troubles:
1. The reset changed NOTHING in terms of getting back to the original firmware
2. The internet part wants my registered email address and password when starting up
3. It appears that Philips erased my registration of my player
4. Trying to reregister doesn't work because it demands my registration number but version 1 only gives a serial number
5. A chat with the Philips help service was totally useless, there was nothing they could do to either restore my registration or to tell me how to get the 16-digit registration number that´s required for registration. The serial number has 14 digits and that won´t work.

Thanks, Tias. I am aware of that, but as I said, getting the OS from the old disk onto the new one is the most critical part. And you are right, the system has a max amount of Albums, Artists etc. Pretty stupid by the way, to hardprogram these limits, or define registers so tightly.

That aspect doesn't bother me to much because most of my work consists of items with a large amount of time like concerts, university colleges, bookreadings and so on. A main reason why I am much more unhappy with the system of tagging instead of normal directories and subdirectories.

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